LOOKING BACK to LOOK FORWARD an Interview with Alt Går Bra by Zanna Gilbert from the Getty Research Institute

LOOKING BACK TO LOOK FORWARD An Interview with Alt Går Bra by Zanna Gilbert from the Getty Research Institute Piece produced for Perspective, the journal of the French National Institute of Art History (INHA). First published in its French translation in Gilbert, Zanna and Alt Går Bra. “Regarder en arrière pour aller de l’avant.” Perspective, no. 2 (2019): 143-162. Introduction by Zanna Gilbert I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer,” poet and critic Wendell Berry points out that owning a computer will not, as some have suggested to him, make him a better writer.1 Further, he How do we negotiate our relationship to ob- calls into question the fact that, as a writer, solete technology amidst a consumer culture he should depend on stripped-mined coal to of planned obsolescence? Who decided that produce energy for his computer. Alt Går Bra’s the discarded technology was not wanted any arguments, like Berry’s, are not purely luddite longer, and do we accept that these useful, or Romantic. The ways in which a technology working machines should be committed to the can aid rather than overtake its purpose is what graveyard of history? What if we were to resus- seems to be at stake here. citate these machines for our contemporary The group also probes the problem of needs and adapt them? What stories can they original and copy, finding the problem itself to tell about capitalism, labor, and social life? be obsolete, and instead offer a vision of pres- These are but a few of the rich array ent culture as one of endless remix of human of questions and tensions addressed by the art- history. Multiples usually refer to a predeter- ist collective Alt Går Bra. By choosing to use mined edition of identical works by an artist, mimeography to make their work – specifi- one sanctioned by that same artist, a publisher, cally Gestetner machines – the group explores printer or gallery. Multiples play with ques- how such a choice affects what they create: an tions of value, authenticity and authorship that outcome that is both manual and machine were so thoroughly dismantled during this and bound. This use of outdated technology is not perverse but seeks to reveal something about 1 Wendell Berry, “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Com- our contemporary engagement with technolo- puter,” in New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly, gy, printing and publishing. In his essay “Why vol. 10, no. 1, 1987, p. 112-113. Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra subsequent periods. Multiples also heralded French, the phrase is verbally clear, but its use the possibility of reaching a broader audience. is ambiguous. It might mean that everything Perhaps the charged nature of multiplicity was is fine, but also the opposite, depending on only wrested back later by those stewards and the context. Alt Går Bra is an expression from profiteers of culture that had standards to up- common language that bears an ambiguity, a hold. What of copying? Is ‘multiple’ in fact a distance, a space for the interlocutor to fill in. euphuism for its nefarious and mistrusted It is not to be taken literally, just like good art. cousin, the copy? To copy implies falsification, As you might very well know, Tout Va Bien is forgery even, or alternatively the unbecoming also the title of one of Jean-Luc Godard’s films. drudgery of the duplicator, suggesting office We are three members working collec- workers robotically producing documents. Alt tively, not in anonymity, but we work in such a Går Bra, however, recover the copy by positing way that we could not point at who does what. it as an arena not only of multiplicity but Alt Går Bra conceives authorship in a slight- of possibility. ly different manner than many other artists. By working collectively, Alt Går Bra Our work is not made by an individual but by embrace the problem of the copy in their a group. In addition, we believe that there is methodology – each member represents the something unrealistic in the very idea of au- whole of the group. At a time when branding thorship. There is so much that we owe to the oneself on social media is commonplace, the past that it feels like an overstatement for us anonymity of these multiple authors offers a to say “we created this work.” We can recreate, radical disavowal of this identity-as-brand. Alt give new contexts, but what we can claim as Går Bra’s use of obsolete print media is forged “our own creation” is only a tiny fraction. The together with contemporary techniques, such rest is to be credited to human history. This as the use of desktop publishing software. It is might be a way to start discussing the original at this meeting point of machine and meaning and the copy. that the group creates their work – not to use The very functioning of the group is the outdated machine for its aesthetic appear- somehow based on the idea of duplication. ances, but to find legitimate necessities to bring We believe that each member should acquire back what has heretofore been discarded. In- the skills and qualities of the others. We play deed, the theoretical thought embedded in with the idea of cloning each other and that their practice thoroughly dissects the ways in none of us should be irreplaceable. In a sense, which philosophers have understood technol- duplication is not only what we do with our ogy. Alt Går Bra carefully and critically consid- machines but it is also what we do among our- er the Janus-face of technology, asking when selves as individual members of the group. This and why we opted for today’s overdeveloped working method greatly enhances our individ- technologies and what we might learn by look- ual potential. ing back to look forward. – Zanna Gilbert. Can you describe some of – Zanna Gilbert. Can you tell me about the your recent projects? Alt Går Bra collective and the group’s name? How did you come to work together? – Alt Går Bra. Generally, we produce work with a sense of urgency. We produce constant- – Alt Går Bra. The name Alt Går Bra is a Nor- ly, mostly in conversation with people with dif- wegian phrase meaning tout va bien, or ev- ferent backgrounds and interests. Our projects erything goes well. In Norwegian, just like in usually depart from philosophy and history. Perspective 2 Looking Back to Look Forward Zanna Gilbert and Alt Går Bra Then, theoretical and discursive elements take We just started working on another a tangible form at the studio. duplicating project, focusing on an architec- We have been working on Den Norske tural ornament: the acanthus leaf. Perhaps, Idealstaten since 2017. This project consists in we will have the opportunity to tell you more rewriting Plato’s Republic with the people of about this later. Norway. We have conducted a survey across the country, asking people about their dreams – Zanna Gilbert. And how did you come to and visions for their ideal State or society. In- work with the mimeo and Gestetner presses? spired by the results of the survey, we produce coats of arms, acrylic on 30 × 60 cm alumini- – Alt Går Bra. When we started Alt Går Bra, um shields. This project led us to reflect upon we set two premises: to acquire the ability to the ontology of certain objects whose format print our own publications and to organize a we use to produce art pieces, like civic coats of series of talks on art and theory that would arms and banners (fane in Norwegian). Un- serve as both an input and an output for our like most other objects, the essence and value theoretical research. of these objects reside in their communality. We began looking into options to run These are objects that resist private appropria- our own press in 2014-2015. One of us remem- tion. You can buy a reproduction of them, but bered their mom being a teacher and telling the you cannot buy them in the same way as you story of how she would make “photocopies” for could purchase, let’s say a painting by David or her students. This was an extremely simple way a Gucci handbag. Our serialized production to make copies, using a gelly pad and carbon of coats of arms and banners, together with paper. We started making hectographs, which our ontological questioning about them share is a technique with plenty of potential, but something with Benjamin’s reflections on au- quickly realized that it was not what we needed thenticity, tradition, and reproduction. to produce our own books. We were looking Similarly, the work we have been do- into a more efficient and sophisticated technol- ing with the mimeograph falls within this kind ogy that would, at the same time, offer plenty of inquiry. We have worked with these obsolete of opportunities for manual work and be able printing machines for five years. The last two to adapt to our needs. years, we have had a base in London, where In our research, we came across a fre- we conducted research at several institutions. netic art collective founded in the mid-1960s This work culminated with an exhibition at in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco. The name of Bruce Castle Museum, located in Tottenham, the collective was Communication Company where the largest mimeograph factory in the and it lasted only for one year. Reading about world had its headquarters. We are currently them, we immediately understood that we co-editing a book with Prof.

Load more